


Break, Break

by entanglednow



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, slight gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-08
Updated: 2009-09-08
Packaged: 2017-10-14 22:00:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/153896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel comes back broken.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break, Break

Castiel comes back broken.

Of all the ways Dean thought he'd come back, he never thought it would be like this.

Blocking out the light in their motel doorway, unnaturally still, but not right, not even close. It's like he's pieced himself back together as best as he can. But not everywhere, he's unfinished, damaged and bleeding out like he can't stop it. Like he just doesn't have the strength to heal any more.

Dean's left choking on the smell of blood, which clings to him like it might never leave, clothes soaked in it.

"Jesus christ," Sam says roughly, stark and honest and _horrified._

He's broken like _them_ , it's nothing holy, nothing righteous and clean, he's wet and red and cut open; if he'd been human Dean would have been afraid to touch, would have been afraid of pulling screams up his throat if his hands so much as brushed some of the places- which are deep and ragged and _wrong_.

But Dean has to touch, and when he does Cas doesn't make a fucking sound.

He pulls him carefully towards the bathroom, fits and starts of soft non-resistance and confused marble.

The coat comes off, slaps in one wet red stain on the bathroom floor, followed by his jacket, the mess of his shoes.

He doesn't resist at all when Dean eases him back into the shower, steps in after him, fingers bright and slippery where they're still pushing at cloth gone red and ruined.

Water pours down, turns dark and runs away down the drain, thick with blood and flecks of teeth and bone.

"Jesus, Cas." Dean doesn't look down, doesn't look at any of it, doesn't even unbutton the mess of his shirt, he just tears every button away from its stitching, eases it free and doesn't look, _doesn't look._

"Dean." Sam's voice behind him is thin and unsteady and Dean shakes his head because he knows, he _knows_ damn it.

"Find some clothes Sam," he says shakily, and then the space behind him is empty.

Dean tips Castiel's head into the spray.

His eyes flutter closed under the pressure, blood runs out of his hair and down his pale cheeks.

"Cas? You in there?" He won't take no for an answer this time. Not a chance in hell.

Dean pushes water across his skin, leaves it pale, tips him until the blood washes down and away. It runs out of his mouth, streams down his chest and he's not breathing but Dean doesn't even know if that's wrong, doesn't even know if he should be. He doesn't know how much is the vessel and how much is the angel, and whether either makes any difference. But maybe that tells him something. That Cas isn't entirely human, that he's not entirely gone.

"Cas? Damn it, Cas talk to me."

He very carefully tilts his head up.

"Cas?" when Castiel opens his eyes they're pale blue, like chips of ice.

The water leaves his face half clean, and the break in his lower lip, ugly and deep, isn't healing. Nothing is healing.

"Say something."

Wet hair curls over his forehead, water trailing Dean's fingers where they hold his head in the spray, hold him up. His lashes are heavy with water and he looks real and clean and alive, and Dean's having enough trouble breathing but he can't help himself, he just can't.

He pushes into the water, feels it run down the side of his face, over his cheek, and past where their mouths are suddenly pressed together, it feels like he's drowning where he pushes him back, back against the slick tiled wall and breathes fear and anger and relief into him until he can breathe without choking.

Castiel's mouth seems more real with water running over it, and Dean can taste it underneath, alive and half warm under his own. He can close his eyes and pretend this isn't something monumental, that this isn't adrenaline shifting into blasphemy when Cas doesn't push him away. He just lets Dean keep kissing the broken edge of his mouth.

He can feel the imperfection, the tear in Castiel's skin that refuses to heal. It makes him real, real in some way that's wrong, but Dean's a mess because he can't stop pushing at the line of it, at the crack in Castiel's flawless mask. Because it terrifies him.

"Come on," Dean encourages against his skin, voice hard and desperate at the same time. "Come on."

He kisses him again, more careful, fingers dragging through his hair, pushing it clean.

"Please." It's that, not his name, that eventually pulls noise out of the angel. A half-murmur that sounds dragged up from somewhere deep and freezing cold.

Dean's exhales, one hard burst of sound, he can't stop running his hands over Cas's hair, down his face, smearing every line of red he finds away.

"Come on, come back," he commands.

"Dean." Cas's voice is quiet, barely audible under the stream of water.

Dean swears, soft and sharp, and kisses him again.

Dean expects protest, of some sort, expects refusal, something, anything other than just the soft exhalation of his name again. There's no judgement, no warning, just a thin questioning noise and breath into his own mouth.

Cas doesn't even pull away. He's soft and wet, and open when Dean wants him to be, slow and unsteady under Dean's fiercer almost desperate relief. Until he forces himself to ease back, to breathe.

It occurs to him, slowly, horribly that it's entirely possible Cas isn't right, isn't quite all there, if maybe he _can't_ pull away on his own. That maybe Dean's taking advantage of him in the worst possible way.

He goes to step back, almost immediately, on reflex but Cas's fingers are curled round his arms, fingertips caught on wet skin.

All the breath leaves him in one go.

Castiel blinks at him, eyes tracking across his face.

"Don't do that to me again," Dean says fiercely, lost in his own messed up fears, he didn't even know how deep he'd gone until it's right here in front of him. Right here, cold and bleeding and alive, and he's shaking and it's only half to do with the crappy motel shower gone cold before anyone could hope to be clean. "Jesus, just don't."

Castiel holds him, fingers curling tighter

"I would never," Castiel says slowly. "I would never leave, not without protest, not while you have need of me."

It's too much, it's too honest and Dean can't- he doesn't get to have what he wants. He swears into Cas's soaking hair and listens to the shaky promises he's not supposed to hear, that he's not suppose to have.

The water beats down against the back of his head, fierce and freezing and he doesn't move an inch, not one goddamn inch.


End file.
